


How Could I Forget?

by icymapletree



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Whump, every character i use is a marvel character in some way or another, i literally only found him because i googled "hydra dudes", like arnold brown is the name of an obscure character from early comics, talkative peter parker, this is low key crack but i like it ahaha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23728678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icymapletree/pseuds/icymapletree
Summary: “You’re Iron Man,” Peter grumbles after Tony laces his arms under his neck and knees.“Yeah, Pete, I’m Iron Man,” he soothes, hoovering off of the ground.“You know my name?”“Of course I remember your name, buddy.”
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 28
Kudos: 115
Collections: IronDad Four Tags Challenge





	How Could I Forget?

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for the four tags challenge that originated over on discord! love you guys!! 
> 
> hope you enjoy <3

Peter crosses his arms and leans against the glass pane of what looks to be his prison for the foreseeable future. He slides down the side when he leans against it, ending up as a heap on the dirty concrete floor. His guard snickers.

“Hey now. At least I’m _trying_ to get comfortable.” Peter stands up and kicks the wall of his cage. “You know what? Screw Ohio. I can’t believe Mr. Stark wanted me to come here.”

“What did Ohio do to you?” the guard grumbles, making a point of showing his weapon and tapping it on the glass.

Peter sticks his tongue out at him. “You chose to be here, buddy. That’s pretty sad,” he says, “God, can you guys turn the brightness down in here? These fluorescent lights are hurting my eyes.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, _no_?” Peter sighs and rubs his hand on his head. “I’m precious cargo. I mean, I assume we’re going somewhere? Ohio doesn’t seem like the place for an evil supervillain lair. Unless you’re Hydra? You’ve got lairs _everywhere_. I swear that the Avengers were on the news like every other day with a Hydra take down before their little civil war.”

“Do you ever shut up?”

Peter shrugs. “No.” He drums his fingers on the glass. “Do you have a name, evil organization guard person?”

“Wilhelm.”

“God, that sounds like Nazi name. Is that even your real name? Why would you tell me your name?”

Wilhelm grumbles but then his eyes shoot up when a large door opens. He kneels and places his weapon on the floor. Peter groans, putting a hand on his hip and tapping his foot. “Is this a cult? Because I don’t have time for a cult. I’m supposed to be mildly thrilled at a theme park in…” he pretends to check a watch, “I think, like, an hour.”

A new man emerges from the shadows with his long fingers wrapped around a scepter. He aggressively taps it on the floor and shouts “Silence!”

Peter swears that a cloud of dust that pillows out in front of him when his scepter hits the ground.

“Yes, sir,” Peter salutes.

“I said _silence!_ ”

“Saying it for a second time doesn’t make it any different than the first. Also, has anyone told you that you look, like, straight out of a movie.” Peter looks up at the ceiling in thought. “Oh my god, you look like that guy from the Princess and the Frog. You know him, right?” He does a little jig, singing, “‘I’ve got friends on the other side.’”

The guy looks at Wilhelm. “Does he ever shut up?”

“It doesn’t look that way, sir.”

“Bring him to the blue room. We’ll see if he can keep up the conversation there.”

“Yes, sir.” Wilhelm salutes as the man leaves, his maroon cape trailing on the floor, no doubt picking up dust. Wilhelm walks toward the wall of the room and types a code into an interface.

“You’re just going to open the door and take me out?”

“Are you really that naive?”

Peter looks up at the ceiling and swallows when he sees thick gas being pumped into the room. “I… uh… I hope that’s very strong. Or else you’ll be waiting for a while.”

“Spidey, they use this to knock out the Winter Soldier. If it doesn’t knock you out, then, well...”

“Aha! I knew you guys were Hydra!”

“Don’t sound too excited.”

“I won’t.” Peter nods, but then the floor gets all too close to his face.

* * *

“You lost the kid?” Pepper sighs into the phone. “You know what, nevermind, of course you did.”

“I swear, Pep, it was an _accident_ \--” Tony reaches for the shoulder bag that’s sitting on one of the beds in his and Peter’s hotel room. He furiously unzips it and pulls out his laptop. “This is such bad timing with the FBI.”

“If it wasn’t an accident, I’d be _very_ concerned, Tony--”

“Also I’m fairly sure he’s suited up, so his identity is safe if it’s Hydra or something--”

“I thought you guys took care of Hydra!”

“We did-- but it’s _always_ Hydra.” He has already had FRIDAY start a search for Peter that will use the cameras throughout the city to find him. When he sees the estimated search time, he types a few lines of code into FRIDAY’s system which are used to narrow down her search. He picks his phone up off the bed, which has been on speaker.

“I thought Ohio was just, like, cows and stuff,” Pepper groans.

“There are a lot of corporate offices and such but--” He’s interrupted by his computer dinging. “Bingo. I found him. Thank God.”

He slams his laptop shut and slides it in his bag. He swipes the hotel room key off of the dresser. “I gotta let you go. I’m gonna go get the kid. Love you.”

“Love you too, Tony. Be careful.”

“I will,” he says as Pepper hangs up. A gauntlet forms around his wrist, and he snaps the window lock. He leaps out of the seventh story window, praying that there are no passerbys.

The sun sets as he and FRIDAY fly full speed over cornfields. It’s pretty, but Tony has other things on his mind. “Send a check to the hotel for their window lock when this is all over, will you?”

“On it, boss. Although, you could have just used the front door.”

“Shut up, FRI.”

* * *

Peter’s eyes feel glued shut. He rustles around a little bit, but his entire body is stiff and unwilling to move. His back is flat on a wooden board, and when he flexes his wrists he can tell that they’re strapped down with metal.

He tugs his arms against the restraints, but he’s so fatigued that it doesn’t do a thing. It’s probably vibranium anyway, and that’s the one metal he is useless against.

His eyes snap open when he remembers what had gone down earlier in the day. Adrenaline darts through him like lightning, but he is so stuck in place that it does little to help.

“He’s awake again, Master Brown.”

Peter’s head lolls onto his shoulder and he grumbles, his lips barely opening. “What is this, a dojo?”

The man from earlier with the maroon cape - who appears to be called Master Brown - wipes his thumb against Peter’s cheek and scoffs when it comes back dirty. “He’s a funny one, isn’t he?”

And that’s when Peter realizes that his mask is gone.

His face must’ve shown it, because Brown laughs. “Our little curly haired boy is way younger than we thought, isn’t he, Wilhelm?”

Wilhelm nods.

“He’s valuable, too-- there had been chatter about Stark’s boy in the tabloids-- little did they know that he’s enhanced, too. All of the dirties wanted to get their hands on him.”

“I’m not--” Peter coughs, “I’m not ‘Stark’s boy.’”

“Good try, kid--”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Don’t call you Stark’s boy?”

“No - _don’t_ call me kid.”

“Would you prefer ‘Peter?’”

Peter’s heart sinks. He had the tiniest bit of hope that they were mistaken-- even if ‘Stark’s boy’ is a pretty dead giveaway. They could’ve told the world his identity already. They know that he’s Peter Parker - not necessarily by fault of his own or by his own choice - but by the old fashioned way.

All they had to do is take his mask off. And somehow, that’s scarier.

Peter turns his head to the side and hacks into his shoulder. “That’s not my name,” he says between coughs.

“Why, you look just like him.”

Wilhelm snorts a laugh. The other guard elbows him with a scowl.

Brown leans in so close to Peter’s face that he can feel the spit. “It’s a good thing that you aren’t him. Because I’m sure Tony Stark would miss Peter Parker. And you, kid, aren’t going to be reunited with anyone anytime soon.”

The room is laced with a heavy silence. Peter coughs again. “First off, say it, don’t spray it--”

“You didn’t tell me he’s a comedian, Wilhelm.”

“--and second off, why are you doing this?”

“I’m glad you asked.”

Peter rolls his eyes and looks to the guards. “That means he’s gonna monologue, right? Because he’s been monologuing _a lot_ up to this point and I don’t know how much more I can take--”

“Silence!”

“Ooh and we’re back to this.”

Brown’s glare sends daggers into his chest. The man leans in close, and this is the first time that Peter has been able to get a good look at him. An angular face, with striking green eyes. His goatee could use some manicuring, but overall he looked put together.

His face is weirdly familiar - in the way that means that he’s probably in one of Fury’s files that Peter skimmed. There’s a name on the tip of his tongue matching the last name ‘Brown--’ Arnold. Arnold Brown. That’s it.

“Ohh,” Peter realizes out loud, “You’re that guy that Pierce was training.”

“You know me?”

“You’re Arnold Brown,” Peter says, and then rattles off everything he remembers, no matter how obscure.

“You lived in Wisconsin as a kid and won the state fair with your family’s prized cattle. You’ve been running from the cops since you’ve been… seventeen? And you got an in at SHIELD because Pierce was looking for trainees. I never had the pleasure of meeting the guy, but Mr. Stark said that if I had been enhanced at the time he probably would have sought me out--”

“You don’t need to recite Fury’s file on me, kid--“

“Don’t call me ‘kid.’”

“--because I know more about me than you do.”

Peter purses his lips. “Sorry, I just realized I interrupted your monologuing. Continue.”

“You ruined the moment.”

“Just get on with it, please. I’m going to have to suffer through it at one point or another, might as well get it out of the way.”

Brown blinks. “Oh, uh, okay.” He clears his throat. “I took you here-- See, it doesn’t have the same type of flow compared to if it were just natural.”

Peter sighs. “Please. I want to start my escape soon.”

“You won’t be escaping any time soon, kid--”

“I told you not to call me ‘kid--’”

“--because, you see, what’s left of Hydra isn’t exactly organized, especially after the Blip. Every single one of our attempts to make another Captain America has failed. He always comes out… _incorrect_ … The Winter Soldier is the closest we’ve gotten since Steve Rogers. So, we figured, why not just take someone who’s already enhanced? That saves us a ton of trouble. And you, Peter, are who we have picked.” Brown smirks. “See, you’ve just gotta get me going, and then the monologue rolls right off the tongue.”

“What makes you think I’ll do this willingly?”

“You won’t have to.”

* * *

“Is there any way to tell if they were fake coordinates?”

“Let me run a diagnostic, boss.”

Tony zooms around the outside of a warehouse located on the outskirts of Ohio’s capital. It’s in that weird in-between zone, before the bustling city becomes suburbia. There’s a creek just out of view, and the croaking frogs seem to mock him.

“It could possibly be an encryption software similar to a program SHIELD was developing before their liquidation.”

Tony sends a repulsor beam at the stone wall. Dusk is starting to pour over him, and he knows that it will make everything so much harder.

“Are you sure there are no spots of body heat?”

“None that I can see, boss.”

He hums in frustration, hoping that Peter is only slightly out of reach. They’d searched the entire building and found nothing. He knows in the back of his mind that if it really is Hydra like he suspects, they could be far underground.

They are known for their basement hideaways - at old military training centres, below the headquarters of SHIELD. The entryways are always hidden in plain sight.

Tony looks over at the creek - like all the bodies of water that he’s seen in Ohio, it seems to be unable to behave. It twists and turns at certain intricacies that make no sense.

Resigning to the fact that Peter’s kidnapping seems to be a puzzle, Tony sighs and sits against the building as he collects his thoughts.

He lists what he knows: Peter could very well be at the coordinates that FRIDAY found - but they could also be a sham. Peter was taken in the afternoon but no one knows what exact time. Police have not been notified - they are not risking Peter’s identity (not after that shit with Beck) unless it’s a terribly urgent emergency. And while being kidnapped by Hydra is an emergency, it doesn’t seem terribly urgent. Not yet.

Tony runs his hands through his hair and lets out a big sigh. He and Peter were supposed to be on their way to an amusement park on the coast of Lake Erie by now - Peter’s reward for coming on the business trip.

But instead of one of the Great Lakes, he’s stuck with this shitty creek in the not-so-nice part of town.

He watches the water dart around rocks and shimmer in the moonlight. There's a different kind of shine at one of the corners, it’s almost too bright to be natural.

A closer look shows that it _is_ too bright to be natural.

“FRIDAY, activate the Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Protocol,” Tony commands, taking off and darting into the water.

* * *

“Oh, Parker,” someone sighs, and through the blurriness this person looks like someone he might know.

He grumbles and tries to blink his eyes back into clarity. Surprisingly, it works. He wonders where his glasses are, but for some reason he knows he doesn’t need them.

This whole experience is weirdly familiar, even though he can’t recall something like this ever happening to him. He’s always needed glasses, and there’s no reason for him to be here - he would never leave Ben’s side, _ever_ \-- and Ben would never leave his. Neither would May.

Oh God, has he been kidnapped? They were just on a walk to get ice cream from that stand he liked-- they had Iron Man ice cream (chocolate with red and yellow sprinkles). He’d been getting it since Iron Man existed, actually.

Flash had teased him about it, once. _Middle schoolers don’t eat Iron Man ice cream, Parker._

Instead of letting it hurt him, like he would’ve any other time, he just shrugged. Flash had been eating pistachio, after all.

“Parker,” the man says again, jostling the boy's shoulders a bit. Peter’s entire body aches, and every movement sends a shiver of pain down his spine.

“Who are you?” Peter whispers, quiet, before turning his head and spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor. “Where are my aunt and uncle?”

“You don’t remember me?” the man asks. Peter shakes his head. “I’m Cameron Klein. I work for Nick Fury?”

“You know Nick Fury? So cool…” Peter grumbles at the ceiling before shooting Cameron an accusatory glance. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Cameron blinks slowly and ignores some of what Peter had said. “You know Nick Fury, too, kid.”

“Why would I know Nick Fury?”

“What did they do to you, Peter Parker?” he says under his breath, and Peter is surprisingly able to hear. “Just, uh, nevermind. Follow me, we’re gonna get you out of here.”

Peter glances around the room. Despite it being extremely dim, he can see everything perfectly. Fluorescent bulbs glow and provide the only light apart from a sliver of warm lamplight that sneaks in from the cracked door.

The man who introduced himself as Cameron is wearing the same uniforms as the men on the ground. If Peter wasn’t so scared, he’d think it’s cool that he’s being helped by a spy.

The cuffs release from his hands, and Cameron looks up from where he was tinkering with a keypad. He smiles and goes to help Peter up.

“Why was I handcuffed?” Peter looks down and grimaces. “And what am I wearing?”

“No time, I’m sure someone you know better will be able to explain it to you.”

Peter’s brows bounce together. “What would my aunt and uncle know about this?” When Cameron shoots him a confused look, Peter narrows his gaze. “The only adults who have been nice to me are my aunt and uncle. Sure, I have my teachers and stuff, but they don’t really care about me, y’know?” Peter shakes his head to himself. “Who are you anyway?”

“I told you, my name is Cameron Klein.”

* * *

Tony prays to every god he knows of that he’ll make it out alive. He’s not particularly religious, but he could use all of the good fortune.

The last time he was underwater in a suit was when he rescued Peter before all of the shit with Toomes. He tended to avoid it after the destruction of his Malibu house. He tends to avoid a lot of things that cause anxiety. Unless it’s to help his family.

The creek isn’t extremely deep - FRIDAY’s scanners say that it’s about sixty feet to the bottom. The water is murky, and not easy to see through, but he keeps following the unnatural glint of the pipes. He’s relying on radar for most of his direction, and when the numbers on his display rise to show a depth of two hundred feet, Tony dives down.

Pressure grows in his suit, and he reminds himself that these suits are made to withstand going very far underwater. This is what the protocol he activated is for, after all.

A fish swims by, and it nearly causes Tony to leap out of his skin. He tries to stay as calm as he can, not allowing anything else to spook him.

His anxiety abates slightly when he sees a chamber at the bottom, which he assumes is used to bring the underwater people into their lair. Tony snorts when he thinks about Sandy’s treehouse from Spongebob. It used to be Peter’s favorite cartoon to watch early on Sunday mornings.

Despite the nostalgia, he has no idea how to break in. Brute force doesn’t seem to be the way to go. He is a mechanic - _the_ mechanic as Peter and Harley like to call him - so he’ll do what he knows best. Working his way in.

He darts down again, no doubt triggering all of their security alarms. Tony doesn’t care though-- Peter is in there. His heart beats - _Peter_ , _Peter_ , _Peter_.

He locates a retina and biometric scanner on the outside of the chamber, no doubt used for if something malfunctioned while someone was in a submarine or whatever. Tony has no clue how they’d get their retina close enough to scan while they are in the creek, though.

Tony pops off the top of the scanner’s case, and chucks it onto the sediment behind him. Everything inside there will be waterproof, anyway. He cuts the red wire, then switches the spots of the green and blue. It’s just like hacking into the pentagon when he was in highschool, he tells himself in order to stay calm.

Surprisingly, it works. Tony assumes that’s because the people who built this place probably never thought anyone would find it, let alone try to break in once they found it. A complicated system would be hard to install at such a depth anyway.

Tony swims in, and the chamber doors above him lock. The water drains through a grate beneath him, and then the platform lowers like an elevator. When he’s gone even further down, the wall in front of him breaks apart and slides open, revealing a tight, dank hallway.

It repulsively smells of mold and mildew, but Tony reminds himself that Peter is here. Hopefully. And he can’t leave Peter behind.

He kicks his repulsors into gear and hovers just above the ground. The lights around him flicker, some of them warm like lamps and others are lit with cheap fluorescent bulbs.

Pipes run along overhead, all colored for different things like water and gas. Tony has no clue how they got the city to sanction a place like this. On second thought, they probably didn’t.

Tony snorts when he passes a restroom sign, and then feels immediately guilty. He just couldn’t imagine the masterminds of Hydra doing something so common as using the restroom.

His heartbeat chooses this moment to remind him why he’s here - _Peter_ is suffering. _Peter_ is in danger. And there’s no time for anything else.

The lights are down when he turns the corner, and his stomach lurches when a door peaks open. He stops abruptly, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Tony Stark.”

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the most cliche villain line ever. Do you guys go to, like, workshops or something?”

“You’re very funny,” Arnold Brown cackles, “just like that kid of yours.”

“So you do have him? I wasn’t so sure because of this underwater fortress.”

Brown slams the door next to him shut. “You’ll never find him--”

Tony tilts his head as two people round the corner. “I think you’re the funny one.” He fires off a quick repulsor blast, knocking Brown to the floor. He zips to them, and recognizes one of Fury’s confidants guiding Peter to the exit.

“Peter!” he shouts, and the boy's eyes go wide.

“Take him,” Klein says, transfering the support to Tony. “I’ll get away on a sub, you just take him out of here. I’ve got some business with Brown.”

“You’re Iron Man,” he grumbles after Tony laces his arms under Peter’s neck and knees.

“Yeah, Pete, I’m Iron Man,” he soothes, hoovering off of the ground.

“You know my name?”

“Of course I remember your name, buddy.” Tony says as he shifts Peter’s weight around. Brown has slinked up behind them, caressing his scepter. Tony tries to distract Brown - he’s weaponless when he’s holding Peter. Hopefully Klein has a plan. “I just remembered who you look like! You know that guy from The Princess and the Frog?”

“Hydra doesn’t have time for silly kid’s movies.”

“Aha! I knew you were Hydra,” Tony looks around the area. He could go backward, farther into the labyrinth and hope he finds an exit. Chances are that they’ll just be cornered. But there’s not really another option quite yet - they’re not fighting, and Tony can’t be the first to strike with Peter cradled in his arms.

He prays that Klein realizes this and has gone for a weapon.

Brown notices Tony’s analyzing and sneers. “Trapped, huh?”

“Not as far as I know,” Tony growls back. In his peripheral vision, he sees Klein right behind him with a gun.

Tony nods and nudges his head toward Brown. Klein shoots at Brown, but Brown fires at Tony with his scepter. Tony darts out of the way, and the lazer singes the wall behind him.

“Hold tight, kid,” Tony grumbles, to which Peter tiredly hums. He leans back on his repulsors, using the bottom of his feet to fire at Brown. He narrowly avoids slamming into the wall as Brown crumples to the floor. Klein shoots at him again.

Brown doesn’t even bother trying to defend himself, his only goal seems to be to hurt Peter. He uses his scepter again, and this time it hits Tony, who nearly falls out of the air once again.

“Go!” Klein shouts, firing behind him, and Tony doesn’t need to be told twice. There’s a voice in the back of his head telling him to go back - but it’s not screaming as loud as the voice telling him to get Peter away.

He quickly goes through the hallways he took time to investigate before, relying on vague memories for direction. Tony could cry when he sees the chamber.

There’s one problem through - there are no subs left at this part of the base. He walks into the chamber anyway. “FRIDAY, how far down are we, again?”

“Two hundred feet, boss.”

“And how long will it take to break the surface using the suit’s full speed?”

“Approximately twenty-nine seconds.”

Tony looks behind himself at the approaching army of guards. “Hey Pete? Can you hold your breath for twenty-nine seconds?”

The look on Peter’s face is his answer. “Alright, so I guess that’s a no. You remember how to fly the suit?”

“I didn’t even know I knew how to fly the suit,” he coughs.

“Well, it’s not too late to learn.” He gently places Peter on the ground, as the people down the hallway begin to appear larger as they come closer. Tony steps out of the suit and helps Peter in.

“FRIDAY, autopilot. Get us out of here.” The suit picks Tony up, carrying him as Peter was being carried before. The last expression Tony sees on Peter’s face is fear before the mask shuts.

Tony nudges a button, and the room starts to fill with water. He sucks in his deepest breath, keeping his eyes open no matter how much they sting.

They’re going up now, and Tony wouldn’t be able to tell if he didn’t know. Little things like pebbles pelt his face, and his lungs are on fire. Being anxiously makes him out of breath, and with the added struggle of _holding_ his breath, he just wants to suck in the cool creek water.

It felt way longer than twenty-nine seconds, but it’s the greatest relief when he gets air again. He’s unceremoniously dropped onto the ground, but his attention is on Peter.

The suit unfolds and comes open, ungracefully dropping Peter onto the ground. The kid is sucking in air and clutching at his chest. Tony has no idea what Hydra did to his kid, and that makes him conjure up the worst thought - maybe Peter is a goner.

**Author's Note:**

> cameron klein, in case you didn't know, is the one computer guy from the winter soldier who refused to fire. he gets a proper backstory as to why he became a spy instead of just a computer dude next chapter. (:
> 
> also, the blip happened, just no morgan because i couldn't fit her in in a way that made sense.
> 
> rest of the chapter will be up soon! chap 2 will hopefully be up on tuesday.
> 
> hope you enjoyed! thanks for reading! come talk to me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/icymapletree)


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